Followers

About Me

I was born in Jamaica and lived there till I got married and eventually moved to Canada. After a long career in a large urban public library I now work part-time in local history. I have been involved for many years in genealogical research and my main interests lie in finding out more about my Jamaican family history. I hope in my musings to show the methods I used to find out more about my family.
The contents of this blog are protected by copyright. Violation of this copyright will be subject to legal action.

Tuesday, 18 November 2014

Remembering George Cardozo, 1890-1915: a Jamaican Bugler in the First World War

William
Perkins Bull. From Brock to Currie

It has been a very long time since I updated this blog. Other duties
have prevented me from coming back to it.One of these, this year, as we commemorate the start of the Great War, has
been to research and record the stories of men and women from the counties of
Halton and Peel here in Ontario, who served in that War.Among those I researched were two men, John
Mills and William Tiers Bleakley, both members of the so-called “Port Credit
Boys”, according to a photograph in William Perkins Bull’s book From Brock to Currie: the military
development and exploits of Canadians in general and of the men of Peel in
particular, 1791-1930”. The book is available on line at http://www.ourroots.ca/e/page.aspx?id=407622

Mississauga Library System

The
“Port Credit Boys” were photographed on Salisbury Plain in England, probably
prior to going over to France.Port
Credit is a village situated on Lake Ontario, part of what was then known as Toronto
Township, Peel County and is now the City of Mississauga, to which Port Credit
belongs.Many of the men pictured
belonged to the 4th Battalion of the Canadian Expeditionary Force,
known as “The Mad Fourth”.

When
I checked the names of the men featured in the photo I noticed, standing at the
left, one George Cordozo [sic], a bugler, who had been killed in the war.Curious because of his surname, I decided to
do some research on him.The first area
of research into those who served in the First World War is their attestation
papers which can be found both on the website of Library and Archives Canada on
their database, Soldiers of the First World War: 1914-1918and also on the
subscription website Ancestry. The information on the attestation papers is
very helpful for genealogical research as it gives the soldier’s full name,
where and when born, name and address of next of kin, trade or calling, whether
or not the person had served in the military and was willing to be vaccinated
and to go overseas with the Canadian Expeditionary Force. He was
given a medical examination, the results of which were on the back of the form
and included apparent age, height, girth of chest, colour of complexion, eyes
and hair, any distinguishing marks, and religious denomination.The form also included the regimental number
and might show the regiment to which the soldier was assigned, though this
could change later.

I was
surprised to see from George’s attestation form that he had been born 14th
November 1892 in Kingston, Jamaica, and I wondered if he might be connected to
the large Cardozo family there. He did not name his father, which was a
drawback; furthermore he gave his father’s address as Aux Cayes, Haiti. My next
task, therefore, was to see if I could find a birth record for George in
Kingston. To do this I went to the FamilySearch website of the Church of Jesus Christ
of Latter Saints (aka Mormons). There I found a birth record for
a Leonard George Cardozo, born in Kingston 14th November but in
1890, not 1892. I was quite sure that I had the right person even with the
discrepancy in the year of birth, and further research would support my
conclusions.

How then had it happened that a man, born in Kingston, Jamaica, ended up
as a bugler and private serving in the Canadian Expeditionary Force, and was he
indeed a member of the Cardozo family? His father’s name was given as Uriah
Nunes Cardozo – the name is sometimes spelled Cardoza.I then did a search in FamilySearch to see if
I could find a marriage record for Uriah and his wife, Marie Margaret
Nicholson, and was successful.They were
married at Holy Trinity Church 9th January1890 and Uriah gave his
father’s name as Joseph Cardozo.

To pursue
the Cardozo connection my next job was to try to find a birth record for Uriah
to a Joseph Cardozo, but here I was stymied as no such birth record showed up.
Based on Uriah’s age at marriage – twenty-six – he would have been born in 1864
and was most likely Catholic. Some Roman Catholic records have been transcribed
and are available on the Jamaican Family Search website, but I could not find a
birth for Uriah.I did find a marriage
record for a Joseph Nunes Cardoza to a Jeanne Louise Herard in 1854, as well as
the births of four of their children between 1859 and 1875, but it’s possible
that not all the births had been transcribed. So I could find no connection
beyond the fact that Uriah gave his name as Nunes Cardozo on his son’s birth
record, and his father’s name as Joseph Cardozo on his marriage record.
Obviously further research was required!

In my next
post I’ll return to George and how he happened to enlist in the Canadian
Expeditionary Force and what I was able to find out about his father.